Shaping up with Sidek

M D Riti

Shrieks at various decibel levels filled the humid air of the indoor badminton stadium as 16 young men and women skipped rope at double time for 20 minutes non-stop.

"This is the simple part, the tough bit is still to begin!" warned former doubles world champion Razif Sidek, as he stood smiling gleefully in their midst.

The young badminton players were all attending a one-month badminton doubles training camp at the Sports Authority of India in Bangalore. This camp, the brain child of Badminton Association of India secretary Mani, is the outcome of two years of trying to persuade the government to hire and bring down a world-class badminton doubles player to coach promising doubles combos in India.

Finally, they zeroed in on the Malaysian Sidek, and are reportedly paying him about 3500 USD to coach at this camp.

"The training he is imparting is actually worth much more," confided a senior BAI official. "But this one session will not suffice. We will need to bring him over every two or three months for the next year at least, for some serious benefit to accrue. I only hope the government agrees to that."

"Doubles have been a weakness for India for a long time," says former national badminton champion Vimal Kumar. "Our footwork is very bad, so are our movements in doubles. Our players have good potential. We have been winning team championships on the strength of our singles players. The formation of good doubles combinations would help tremendously. But Sidek should be given a free hand to organise the players exactly as he likes."

Vinod Kumar, younger brother of Vimal, and himself a former national badminton champ, is assisting Sidek at the camp.

"We have had Chinese coaches here before to train players, but they were simply not in Sidek’s class," says Vinod, watching Sidek demonstrate a stroke to Jwala Gutta and Shruti Dhavan, reigning national doubles women’s badminton champs, and ranked 39 in the world order. "Besides, they all trained our players only for singles. This training is as good as our players could ever hope to get!"

Continues Vinod, toying with a shuttlecock from a full box on the floor of the indoor courts, as he watches players train and practice: "We always had the potential for good doubles teams. But we never got enough exposure abroad. We are lagging behind by at least 15 years even now. Now, for at least six or seven hours a day, they are being trained in the latest techniques of playing."

"All the new techniques and new strokes that we are being taught should definitely help us perform better at an international level," says Jwala, fanning herself as she cools off temporarily and talks to rediff.com. "He is teaching us by new methods of training that are most useful."

Adds Shruti: "We already work well together and have an excellent understanding of each other’s game, because we have been playing together for five years now. What we need is better fitness to perform well at an international level, and that is what we are gaining now."

"This is a very good group or hard-working players," beams Sidek, happily smiling at his proteges. "They have all come with a great willingness to learn and I am ready to give them my best because they are so enthusiastic themselves. I only hope that when they finish this camp, they will continue to practice what they have learnt here with me."

But this is easier said than done. Badminton, especially doubles, is beset by all kinds of problems in India. The first is the sheer geographical distance that separates players. Sidek will now study each individual player’s game and then pair all of them off. Some existing combos, like Jwala and Shruti, and Sanave Thomas and Biju, who are now ranked world number 25, will continue. But Mithesh lives in Maharashtra while his partner Vidyadhar is from Andhra Pradesh. How can they hope to practice together outside camps?

"This is definitely a major hurdle for doubles players in India," acknowledges Sidek. "In Malaysia and China, doubles live together and practice together for several hours every day, all through the year, right from when they are about 15 years old. They are paid by the government to do just that, nothing else."

This, he says, is largely the reason why Malaysia and China dominate this sport so easily. "The government and private companies both sponsor the game heavily, and make it possible for good doubles teams to not work at all," he explains. "Two big private sponsors in Malaysia between them finance the game upto about two million ringgit a year. It's time Indian companies realised that badminton too could give this country a lot of mileage, and began putting money in the sport."

Here, not only is there no question of doubles teams being paid to stay and practice together, sometimes even getting the organisations they work for to give them leave with pay for a month at a time or more to attend a camp or practice for a tournament becomes difficult.

"If they even just give us our basic salaries, we can pay our own way and come to these camps," says B Nagaraj, who works for the Railways in Hyderabad. "We really need to concentrate on improving our speed and power, and work on the strategies that he is teaching us. But this becomes difficult once we go back to our homes and jobs."

Even Sanave and Diju, both of whom live in Kerala (Sanave is in Kochi and Diju is in Trichur) say that they are unable to meet and practice together back home. Only Jose George and his partner, who represented India very creditably at the Thomas Cup last year, will stay on at SAI at practice together even after the camp. They will train under the SAI badminton coach Ganguly Prasad, who is also attending the camp and understanding Sidek’s techniques closely. To be able to do this, Jose and his friend need to be financially independent: SAI will give them boarding and lodging, nothing else: they need money from home for other living expenses, and cannot generate any income for their families either.

This, again, points out Jose, is another socio-economic reason why the doubles game is yet to take off in India. Most players swing between singles and doubles, because job prospects on sports quotas are far better for players who can play singles well. But a player who plays both may not have the single-minded focus on team playing that has now become essential to perform well at an international level in doubles badminton.

"This is the first time the government seems to be acknowledging that we could come with golds for badminton doubles with a little more hard work," says Jose. "Until now, nobody including the players took the doubles game seriously. We knew we lacked speed and strength, but never did anything much about it. Apart from helping us build all this, Sidek is even improving our basic techniques of receiving and delivering good services, understanding our partners better and devising good on-court game strategies."

"If we continue to train them at this pace, we might hope to produce a world-beating doubles team by 2003, not earlier," says Vinod Kumar.

Sidek is more diplomatic: "It all depends on them as individuals: you cannot put a time frame on how many days or months it will take them to become world class."

Another major handicap that Indian doubles players have suffered from so far is the complete lack of any kind of killer instinct. In fact, they are not even able to play a good offensive doubles game, and invariably play defensively. This is largely due to their lack of confidence in their own game and inadequate exposure to aggressively play.

Sidek is now working hard on teaching his young wards how to play offensively and also go for the kill at the right moment in every game. If he is were to achieve this with at least some of the teams, he would have done something truly tremendous for Indian badminton.

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